1. Field
The field of the invention relates to computer systems and computer networks, and more particularly, to systems, networks, and methods for passing content of computer and network traffic.
2. Background
Policy enforcement is an important gateway function, which is performed between a gateway and a user. Policy enforcement performed by a gateway product may include, for examples, source verification, destination verification, user authentication, anti-virus, content scanning, content detection, and intrusion detection.
Generally, existing gateway products receive a request for policy enforcement sent by a user, perform policy enforcement, and then transmit the request to a server. In response to the user's request, the server sends a reply back to the gateway, which then performs further policy enforcement. After performing this second policy enforcement, the gateway passes the reply to the user.
The connection (i.e., the data transmission rate) between the gateway and the server is generally slower than the connection between the gateway and the user. As such, there may be a lag time before the gateway receives all of the data of a reply (or a prescribed amount of data) from the server. In addition, existing gateway products are generally configured to first receive all data of a reply from a server, and then perform policy enforcement on the reply before passing the reply to the user. Thus, the user may experience a lag time before the reply from the server reaches the user. When the user is a computer program, such as an email software or a web browser, this lag time may result in a timeout at the user side, or may give an end user the wrong impression that the reply did not come back or that a transmission error had occurred. In some cases, this lag time may lead to the user terminating or canceling the request.
Accordingly, systems and methods for passing content of computer and network traffic would be useful.